18.8.10 ~ Handle with care (650 word diary)

At the end of my session, my counsellor said, “Make sure you do something nice for yourself today.” It’s the first time she’s said it and it might give you some clue as to how things went.

She’s really good. Very good. Even with my knowledge of how important this process is to me, even with my relative trust in her, I still go in with my defences up and every time she gently knocks them down, it surprises me. That she sees me. And I cry. Sometimes I cry very hard. And I leave thinking – what more can there be? And there’s always more. I cried very very hard today. Then I had to go pick Jake up from nursery. I always feel like I have to take time to compose myself before I do, but really, I shouldn’t worry, because as soon as I see him, he takes me to another place.


Today, he ran up the High Street, going in and out of shops that had their doors open and pressing his face up against the window pane and making faces. I tried to tell him to stop but it’s hard to be convincing when you’re laughing so much. Then we went into my the Portugese restaurant and I ordered myself some cod fishcakes to go. Their cod fishcakes are divine. The best I’ve ever tasted. This was treat number one for me. While we waited for them, Jake and I shared a smoothie as he bounced up and down on my lap, grinning like a cheeky monkey. Then we went into Sainsbury’s where I bought grapes, sausages, and cakes. A slice of New York Cheesecake, a lemon cupcake and a chocolate cupcake. Doctor’s orders!! Then we went to the playground and sang our own versions of Row Row Row your boat before I persuaded him it was time to go home because I was knackered.

None of us slept very well last night. Jake kept waking up and crying and the air was just spiky. And I still have my headache. I felt raw and needed a rest. He came happily. I put Show Me, Show Me on for him while I went to sort out the bathroom rug that had come out of the wash sopping wet despite several spins. I wrung as much water out as I could but knew I had to dry it on the line outside. Jake saw me going down the stairs to the garden and I asked him to stay put. Those stairs are scary even for me. So I asked him to stay.

I got to the bottom, opened the door and within seconds, I heard him scream. I turned and saw him fall. I saw him topple and hit several steps. His back was to me and he landed on his bum and stopped. I screamed his name and ran towards him. His fall had been stopped by a cardboard box near the bottom of the stairs. If it hadn’t been there and he’d fallen all the way to the bottom, he would have hit concrete.

He was fine. He was shocked, crying and shaking, but otherwise fine. I held him as he cried and told him it was okay but also never to do that again. I’m not sure who was more shaken, him or me. After, we sat on the sofa together, eating biscuits, holding each other. And then he fell asleep in my arms.

All I want to do now is sleep for a few days. Sleep and eat cake. My heart’s been ripped out of my chest a few times too many today. And yet. And yet. I notice that I’m feeling a little less numb than yesterday. Just a little bit.

I have to go now. Jake is calling me to sit down and blow bubbles with him into his water cup.

29.7.10 ~ 475 words on my worst habit (previously entitled: the crap that f**cks up your life)

This morning I got angry over the stupidest things. It seemed to come out of nowhere and I wasn’t able to control my irritation. It resulted in me shouting at Jake because we were late taking him to nursery and he refused to leave the house and carried on playing with his leapfrog books which I’d asked him to put away. I was also swearing and muttering under my breath. At one point I muttered, “If you don’t go to nursery I’m going to go crazy and kill myself.” It made me stop. And think about what I’d said. It shocked me. The power of those words. How damaging they could be, if he’d understood them. Taking the blame for my crap. He may not have understood the words but he’s sensitive enough to pick up on the bad feelings I was giving out. It made me think of myself as a child, confronted by my angry mother. I know that beating myself up doesn’t help, but in that moment, I did not know what else to do. Forgive myself for saying and thinking and feeling such a thing? How could I?

When I told him we were going to nursery he said No! and turned his face away. I had to tell him we were going there because I didn’t want to lie on top of everything else and then have to see him upset when he realised the truth. On the way there, knowing I couldn’t leave him like this, I stopped and apologised for shouting. I told him it wasn’t his fault, that I was in a bad mood, and I kissed him. I don’t know what he made of it. When we got to the nursery, he cried and said No! and clung to me. It may have happened anyway, but it felt like it was my fault, because I’d been angry and mean to him. Because I’d dragged him out of the house angry when all he wanted to do was play. What if he felt he was being punished by being left there? It made me even angrier because I don’t want to hurt him but in moments like that, I feel so powerless.

Later I realised where the anger was coming from from. Leaking out of old wounds, unspoken, unresolved crap that should have been screamed out of me years ago. Years worth of them. I can blame the counselling, the agonising excavation that is bringing this raw pain to light. But it’s been going on for a long time, so long it's become a habit, a way of being.  I want to change, I think I am trying to change, but for now, knowing this doesn’t change the fact that it’s bloody hard to live with. Even harder when I know it hurts the people around me.

28.7.10 ~ 235 word diary (the things we do not know)

 

After a break last week, I returned to my “excavation” today. Yesterday I was telling Paul how I thought having counselling would be about having someone objective to talk to. I thought I knew myself pretty well and didn’t see how a stranger could know more or help me much beyond listening.

But since it began, I’ve realised I don’t know myself as well as I thought and there are many things I don’t understand. So I’m having to put myself entirely into someone else’s hands, trusting someone again for the first time in many years. I told my counsellor this and she asked if it was hard to do. In fact, it’s easy. It’s easy to trust her because I know where she stands. My relationship with her is safe. It’s hard knowing that, that my other relationships do not feel safe in comparison. It’s hard admitting it, because it sounds so irrational. And because it goes so deep I can’t see how it’s going to come good. But that’s also about trust. Letting go of needing to know how it will work and trusting in the process. No matter how blurred and fuzzy things seem right now.

After our recent frenetic, people-filled holiday, it was lovely to have just Jake’s company again today. When other people are around I feel like I lose my connection with him. It was comforting to get it back.